Today leading Internet search engine company Google launched a blog dealing with the company’s views on public policy, government and politics. The blog, complete with a stylized image of a non-descript white government building, has been used privately by the company for the past several months. Google’s Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs Andrew McLaughlin was the company’s only public policy employee as recently as the beginning of 2005, but as the new blog is quick to highlight the department now contains a bigger team of eight, along with four support employees, a team the company hopes will continue growing as Google deals with the issues of privacy, child online safety, copyright and trademark protection, content regulation, reforming the U.S. patent system, and broadband Internet policy. "These issues are fundamental to the future of the Internet (and of the individuals it empowers), and are increasingly prominent on the agendas of policymakers worldwide," according to Mr. McLaughlin’s writing today on the new public policy blog. McLaughlin points out that Google hopes to put their own mark on public policy issues. “We're seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way. Yes, we're a multinational corporation that argues for our positions before officials, legislators, and opinion leaders. At the same time, we want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies,” McLaughlin said.

Google hopes the new public policy blog will help encourage a dialogue between the company and its users. “In the weeks and months ahead, expect to hear more from us on issues like net neutrality, censorship, innovation regulation, immigration, R&D, national security, and trade, just to name a few. All of the members of Google's global public policy team will be contributing posts,” according to McLaughlin. Google hopes the new blog will serve as a resource for and have a global influence on public policy makers such as regulators, legislators and governmental ministers and their staff members, with the aim of “trying to enact sound government policies to foster free expression, promote economic growth, expand access to information, enable innovation, and protect consumers,” according to McLaughlin. In order to assure that dialogue does occur on the new public policy blog, Google is allowing the public to respond to any writing appearing in the new venue, a policy differing from that of the official Google blog. Some of the first responses have been from people who welcome the launch of Google’s new public policy blog, such as one written by a person identifying himself only as Jordan, an employee of a news sharing web site called Now Public, who wrote “thanks for opening up this forum.” A response from popular blog author Phillip Lenssen wrote “thanks for opening up the comments here.”

The launch of a public policy web presence comes at a time when Google has seen increased scrutiny from global regulators, and shows the company’s expanding interest in governmental lawmaking. On June 11, 2007 Google received the lowest possible privacy policy rating by Privacy International, a global organization working for the protection of privacy. In 2006 Google lobbied the U.S. Congress to strengthen Internet neutrality rules, and this year the company is involved in urging the Federal Communications Commission to auction off a portion of the television signal spectrum for use in wireless Internet access. The company has also recently been involved in petitioning the U.S. Department of Justice about what it sees as unfair practices by Microsoft in the Window’s Vista computer operating system. The Department of Justice in turn has been investigating Google’s proposed acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick for more than $3 billion. The company’s privacy policies have also recently come under pressure from the European Union’s data protection working group, and in response Google announced plans this month to shorten the length of time before it makes customer usage data anonymous in its server log files.